A Slaying In The Suburbs: The Tara Grant Murder by Steve Miller and Andrea Billups

Paperback with excerpts from the Foreword:  The taking of a life prematurely is a painful and final gesture with widespread effects.

And yet people continue to commit murders, including the case of a suburban husband with no criminal history who, one cold winter night, strangled his attractive wife, chopping her body into fourteen pieces and burying it haphazardly in a snowy forest in a macabre act of deception.

The murder of Tara Grant drew some of the most intense public interest in Michigan history and the 2007 case will not soon be forgotten.

The Grant story is a gripping dark tale of loss and one in which there are no winners.

Everyone thought the Grant family was living the American dream.

Everyone was wrong.

That it occurred in an upscale town, in a nice home, in a seemingly loving and happy family, taking frequent vacations and hosting parties for their children - the truth of what went on behind closed doors we will never know - shakes observers to the core.

With Tara's every step up the corporate ladder, Stephen grew more resentful of her success in comparison to his own stay-at-home role and both husband and wife lashed out.

Their children were all that held them together until the night Stephen snapped, strangled and dismembered his wife, then disposed of her body, piece by piece, in the very park his children played in.

The victims continue to accumulate:  Tara's family and friends, who lost her love, support and companionship;  Stephen's relatives, who must bear the shame of a son and brother who will forever be known as one of the state's most brutal killers.  His father, Al Grant, committed suicide less than six months after his son's conviction.  Stephen's friends, shocked that their pal could suffer such a bizarre break from reality, were affected as well.

Most heartbreaking, two children have lost both parents, one to murder and one to prison, and must grow up with the knowledge that their father killed their mother, an act that will be difficult for family to explain and for them to ever understand.

A Slaying in the Suburbs (2009) is a frank and heartbreaking portrayal of murder, a dysfunctional marriage, the actions that destroyed a family and its painful legacy.

Stephen Grant was found guilty on count one of the charge of murder in the second degree in the same year he took his wife's life.  On count two, mutilation of a corpse, he received six to ten years.  The sentences, per Michigan law, would run concurrently.  In 2008, he was sentenced to a minimum of fifty years in prison (Bellamy Creek Correctional Center in Ionia, Michigan).  In 2010, Stephen lost his final appeal in state court, leaving intact the original sentence of fifty to eighty years.  Stephen would be eighty-eight in the year 2058 before he could apply for parole.

About the authors:  Steve Miller has been a reporter for the Dallas Morning News and the Washington Times.  He has also worked as a correspondent for People magazine and US News and World Report.  He lives in Lansing, Michigan.

Andrea Billups is a Midwest-based national reporter for the Washington Times.  She has worked as a staff correspondent at People magazine and reported for a number of national publications including Reader's Digest and Money magazine.